Jihadi Page 9

  You knew things for sure back then.

  It was 2005 again and Thelonius was staring at Victoria Lord on the television that was playing in the Salem Abandoned Animals Facility.

  What did he know for sure now?

  He knew for sure his name was Thelonius.

  He knew for sure the television set was on.

  He knew for sure he wanted his cat back.

  He knew for sure Child had to have been alive when he walked in the door of this godforsaken place, otherwise Melanie Del Rey would not have made such a fuss about getting him.

  He knew for sure there was a green puddle back home in his garage. And a half-full jug of antifreeze. Did he know for sure there was a leak in the Siena? She had just bought that antifreeze. Well. That was why: The minivan was leaking, surely, and leaking fast. But. The instrument panel would have blinked on if the Siena was low on anything. She had made a big deal about the instrument panel and everything it blinked on for.

  She wouldn’t poison a cat intentionally. She wasn’t pregnant or anything.

  Wait. Did he know that for sure?

  No. No, he didn’t.

  But.

  He knew for sure that when he looked out at the Siena next, that asphalt beneath it, grey as a departing storm, had damn well better have antifreeze on it.

  Thelonius made for the wall, took a deep stress breath, and prepared himself to scan the bottom of the narrow, grimy window that extended half a foot or so into the basement, to check the asphalt outside, to confirm the existence of a green puddle that had to be there under his green minivan. He stood on his tiptoes and looked.

  The asphalt beneath the van was blank as the face of a corpse.

  His insides quivered. He shut his eyes. He saw himself in the Salem house, at the dining-room table, sitting across from his wife, watching as though he were someone else. They were eating Child, both of them. Child butchered in his bloody fur and set out on two plates: they were eating him with knives and forks, weaving the silverware with care around the puddles of blood.

  ‘My God,’ Thelonius said. ‘Why did I do it?’

  On One Life to Live, Clint Lord stared at his wife Victoria’s back, having asked her something. Victoria was always turning away from Clint.

  Thelonius couldn’t remember what Clint had asked Victoria, but he must have heard the question, because he’d been watching the TV when the question had caused her to turn away. Whatever the question was, Victoria answered it by saying she’d had enough.

  Not a drop of antifreeze on that asphalt.

  Thelonius rubbed the back of his neck, looked away from the TV set, stood on tiptoe again and stared through the sliver of window available to him, just to double-check. What might well have been a Monarch butterfly settled calmly onto a large, cold-looking maple leaf that had landed near him. The sun hid itself behind a weasel-shaped cloud driven by October wind.

  Late in the year for butterflies. Remember what that freak in the cell said about butterflies.

  It fluttered away. The day brightened again. Beneath the front end of the minivan, there was, of course, no green pool.

  Thelonius felt the raw panic rising again in his gut, tamped it down. The voice said: Machine, kid. Machine. Machine. It poisoned Child. Disable it. Disable it now. Otherwise it will come after you. PLOOF. THWOCK. KA-THOK.

  And still no green pool.

  Stress response CONSCIOUS. Stress response CONSCIOUS. BREATHE, DAMMIT.

  lvi. BREATHE

  Here, the Fabs foresee a certain ill-groomed hotel manager’s inappropriate proximity and halitosis. Clive imagined I am lonely here. He imagined I must have more index cards than anyone he ever saw. He imagined there must be a lot of family who will be visiting me. He imagined I must have learned to type fast like that in high school. He imagined I know my hands sure are pretty. He imagined he would let me get back to work. Then he did just that, leaving me to ponder legislation banning all vain imaginings. I find I don’t like people around anymore unless they serve a purpose. Track two, which had been on pause, resumes. In a certain sense, it plays eternally.

  Thelonius stood, shouted at the top of his lungs: ‘IF IT ISN’T TOO MUCH GODDAMN TROUBLE, CAN I SEE MY GODDAMN CAT NOW, GODDAMMIT?’

  No answer.

  The voice in his head, not his own, continued: Machine. Not your wife. Go back. Kill it.

  ‘I WANT TO SEE CHILD,’ he bellowed, then collapsed, arms wide, legs stiff, hyperventilating, onto an orange plastic chair.

  On One Life to Live, Clint had just noticed that he was all alone in the restaurant. He had been lost in some rant, had turned to confront her, found only her empty place at the table. Clint closed his eyes. Thelonius closed his eyes, too. Melanie Del Rey’s slim hand cupped his shoulder from behind.

  ‘Did you kill a child?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t beg, please. Dogs beg. Did you love Child?’

  He nodded his head Yes.

  Melanie Del Rey pursed her lips and nodded with great compassion, as though agreeing with something he had yet to say.

  ‘I see. Poor boy. Poor boy.’

  Her hand was on his cheek.

  ‘Poor boy. His kidneys were hard as stones. I am sorry. Preparing the remains for you.’

  The feeling of her hand withdrawing. The sound of the television beginning to vibrate against its fastenings. Smooth orange plastic beneath him.

  Thelonius stood and approached One Life to Live.

  Even Clint, lost and all alone in the restaurant, noticed Thelonius’s approach. He tensed, stared out from behind the glass. By now, Clint’s restaurant table was shaking, and the condiments upon it had tumbled to the floor.

  The table within the television writhed and stuttered like a patient in electroshock. It fell over on its side, forcing Clint to back away in alarm and revealing a familiar geometric pattern. On the high-mounted screen, expanding along the restaurant floor against the surface of a hideous orange-and-black carpet, that spreading puddle of blood outlined what remained of the little dead-eyed girl.

  Thelonius sat back down against the smooth orange plastic of the chair, buried his face in his hands, wept his face wet. His mother loved him very much. His grandmother promised him that.

  The voice that was not Thelonius’s own said: You know why it did not want that cat in the house, kid. Go back. Cut its head off. You know.

  The problem was: Thelonius did know. Toxoplasmosis.

  ‘Christ,’ Thelonius said.

  Collateral damage, kid. Couldn’t be helped.

  ‘Christ help me.’

  Clint, trembling within the trembling television, wheeled, pointed at Thelonius and shouted: DO NOT CALL ON ANOTHER GOD THAN GOD!

  Thelonius was on his feet again, seizing the sides of the boxy TV set with both of his hands, hoping to rip it from the wall, but instead he began to vibrate with it. Shaking, almost gone, he turned his head to look for Melanie Del Rey to alert her to the problem, but she was nowhere to be found.

  lvii. she was nowhere to be found

  Yet another vanishing woman. This obsession with familiar life narratives creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the patient’s pathology only tightens its grip. Time for a lie down.

  Fatima was considering a problem.

  This problem kept her from making a bigger fuss about Noura’s cooking, or honouring Ummi’s various spoken and silent cues. Ummi had moved on to the topic of seasonings. Fatima stared up at the plaster of the tiny, cramped second-floor apartment the three of them shared. There were indeed cracks in that ceiling. Insects occasionally emerged from those cracks. An argument between the man and wife who lived upstairs, its words occasionally audible, had taken an ugly turn. It was something about vinegar.

  lviii. the man

  And he’s back. More delays, more inanity, but at least they are served with respect.

  As Ummi went into a lengthy overview of the dozen or two best ways to ensure that rice was cooked to the proper
consistency – not too sticky, not undercooked, either – Fatima considered her problem: She needed the phone not to ring.

  The challenge of somehow keeping her mobile phone from going off, without actually turning it off or silencing it, kept returning to the upper regions of Fatima’s mind. This dilemma crowded all other goals off the stage. The desire to locate – to afford! – a better place to live; the desire to tell Ummi she could quit her job at the shop; the desire to look, at least, as though she were paying attention to that lecture about rice. All that receded into the background. Only the problem of the phone stood in the spotlight.

  A few dozen friends and relatives constituted the universe of possible familiar numbers. They would be calling to console themselves about Wafa’s passing, but that was an etiquette matter, easy enough to manage by ignoring recognizable callers. The larger challenge lay in the unfamiliar and blocked numbers.

  Her new boss, Murad Murad, had made frequent mention of his loathing of voicemail, had warned Fatima to be ready to receive phone calls after hours in the event of an ‘interrogation emergency’. This sounded like an improvisation intended to impress her, and she doubted there was any such thing as an interrogation emergency. Murad Murad might well be the kind of supervisor, however, who would call her on her first evening home after work, supposedly in order to confirm that she was following his instructions about availability, but actually to attempt, pathetically, to flirt with her again.

  Although such a call turned her stomach, taking it connected to the successful completion of her first week on the job, and to the collection of her first paycheque – half the amount necessary to pay the back-rent due on Wafa’s place in D—. The husband and his mother, with whom they were not close, had abandoned the house. It was large and well outside of the city. The landlord had agreed to hold it for a month … if and only if the debt were paid this week. So calls from Murad Murad had to be taken. Yet how was she to be certain, when the unfamiliar number rang through on her cell phone, that the voice of the imam would not greet her?

  She had no idea what number the imam would be calling from, either. Further discussion with him seemed unwise.

  So. If the phone were to ring, and if it were not some identifiable aunt or uncle eager to hear her sob, if she should receive a call from a blocked number or one she did not recognize, should she ignore the call, or press ‘answer’? If she ignored it, she placed her new job in jeopardy. If she took it, she ran the risk of becoming entangled again in the question of what she had or had not witnessed at the embassy.

  The matter was out of her hands now.

  Silently, Fatima sought protection from God against the telephone ringing.

  Following this silent prayer, there was the familiar sound of Ummi weeping, and the unlikely sight of Noura’s comforting arm around Ummi, whose head sagged and whose shoulders shook.

  Noura made a cartoon face of exaggerated disbelief for Fatima’s benefit.

  ‘You didn’t even listen to her,’ Noura said.

  lix. You didn’t even listen

  A frequent refrain in our household. T often maintained (for instance, during discussions about family planning) that he was not being listened to, when in fact he was not being agreed with. Men are such control freaks.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You don’t listen. She wants you to promise you had nothing to do with that business at the embassy. And she’s not the only one, Fatima. Everybody wants you to promise.’

  ‘Everybody.’ Fatima drew a deep breath. The Intimate Companions again.

  ‘Mother, do you really imagine I would …?’

  Before Fatima could continue, however, the cell phone chimed. It was an unfamiliar number.

  The guilty dead guy writing this finds himself wishing she had never taken that call, but that was not the Plan.

  Melanie Del Rey, secure now in the conviction she had seen and heard it all, more wary than ever of displays of emotion likely to disrupt the order of her Facility, stood in the waiting room, arms akimbo, staring at Thelonius.

  He had perched himself on an orange plastic chair, which he had removed from its row and placed in an unauthorized spot. He was attempting to bear-hug the television on the wall. He wept and shivered. He kept repeating the words ‘Not a machine’.

  She called the police.

  lx. She called the police

  This much, at least, is beyond dispute. She did: Salem Police Department log number 2005A2096399.

  Far more calm and confident than she had anticipated, Fatima answered the phone. Murad Murad’s voice greeted her. There was an interrogation emergency. She was to report to work immediately. Not without some relief, she stood, apologized to her mother and sister for breaking off the discussion, put on her gold headscarf – the same one she had worn earlier that day – and called a cab. It was nine fifteen by the time she made it to the BII compound, which was windowless and made of concrete.

  lxi. the BII compound

  A combination prison and command centre, modelled after one of our own facilities.

  A policeman came and produced silver handcuffs. They were meant for Thelonius.

  ‘Arms in front, okay?’

  The policeman’s partner watched as Thelonius extended both wrists, his fingers trembling. There was no struggle. Limping Thelonius followed them out of the shelter and up the stairs to the street. The air was cold and grey.

  One of the officers, the one who had cuffed him and led him by the arm, said something about Thelonius’s leg and asked if he was okay. Thelonius said he wasn’t sure.

  He stood on the sidewalk near the cruiser, glad to be in a new space, and so obedient that the officer holding his arm said he probably just needed a change of scenery. Thelonius agreed and nodded. He waited for the rear door of the squad car to open, then got in. He did not believe, at first, that he had had a nervous breakdown at the Salem Abandoned Animals Facility. Then he figured maybe he had. Then he decided that he didn’t know. He watched the scenery change from the back of the police car.

  He wondered how long he would go on like this.

  He wondered whether he would always have a beast inside of him, whether he would always be running to escape it.

  He wondered whether Mike Mazzoni, that marine who took a leak on the Koran and then chucked it into the dumpster, wondered about such things.

  He wondered whether he would ever file a report about Mike Mazzoni. He looked out the window, then leaned his head on it.

  He felt bad about leaving the Republic before he could get Mike Mazzoni thrown out of the Marine Corps. He felt bad about having married the wrong person. For having been the wrong person someone married. He felt bad about lying to Becky about the Plum. He felt bad about letting everyone down. He felt bad for that little girl and her dad.

  He started weeping again, but made no sound this time.

  In the back seat of the cruiser, headed toward a bridge, Thelonius got his bearings. That bridge led over the Danvers River. It was called the Veterans Memorial Bridge, and it took you out of Salem. Which meant they were taking him not to the jail, but in the opposite direction.

  Thelonius leaned forward as far as he could. Through the thick bulletproof glass, he asked the glum police officer who was driving whether he, Thelonius, was going to the station. No answer. Then he asked whether he would be able to phone someone when he got to the station. Nothing came back then, either. He asked the police officer’s partner, the one who had cuffed him, the same questions, but he had stopped talking, too.

  At least the car was moving. At least he could hear the motor whine. At least they were approaching the bridge.

  Just Get Started.

  Thelonius twisted his hands, reached into the front pocket of his jeans, extracted his phone. From memory, he tapped in Ryan Firestone’s speed-dial code, hit the green ‘phone’ button, put the call on speaker.

  As though surrounded by bees, Dad said from a great distance: ‘T?’

  ‘I�
��m divorcing her,’ T shouted toward the phone. ‘I don’t want any part of this anymore.’

  They were on Veterans Memorial Bridge now.

  Thelonius hung up, tried to edge the phone back into his pocket. Failed. Then the car hit a seam where some new bridge asphalt began, and the phone flew out of his hands and dropped to the floor. If either policeman noticed what he had done, neither was admitting it. The car was over the bridge. They were out of Salem.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’ Thelonius asked, way loud enough, but neither policeman turned his head.

  ‘Am I under arrest?’ he asked again.

  From his cell, the dead guy telling this story says ‘Hi’ to Becky, recalls her reciting The Tempest to him and stroking his hair in front of their window of night stars, peers at that memory before this chapter ends. Space enough have I in such a prison.

  lxii. ‘Hi’ to Becky

  What a queer sociopathic tic, this recurrent homage à nous.

  Absurd that I should actually miss you, having read it.

  My insides roil. Breath shallow and achy and ungovernable. Asked Clive for some onion soup. He is gone to fetch it. Who knows. Might settle this.